Chapter 4: The Future
When you can see the future, the future sometimes blinds you. There are countless theories about how precognition works, countless explanations for the gift...and the curse.
But Wayne had never believed the future could be truly seen.
Konrad sat reading books on legal systems and governance. Such texts were far too advanced for a six-month-old child, yet perfectly calibrated for a Primarch's mind.
Then it came, a vision, sudden and visceral.
Ten assassins invaded the Library, weapons raised, and they fired without mercy. Wayne fought back with the grace of a man who'd conquered impossible odds before, but the numbers were against him. The assassins paid in blood for their attempt, yet not all of them fell.
In the end, Wayne lay bleeding across the polished floor, surrounded by his own corpses, and the survivors, laughing, celebrating their victory over the wealthiest man in the world.
Konrad saw himself burning them alive in his rage. He saw himself taking Wayne's seat, inheriting the empire his father built. Or he saw himself cast out, expelled from everything, alone.
The future fractured into countless threads, each one twisting into something different. Different branches, different fates, all radiating from this moment.
This was the first time he had precognized, his first glimpse of what was to come. And it showed him his father's death.
Konrad stood up so fast that the book fell. He ran toward the highest point of the Library, desperation driving every step. "Father.. Please dont die!!"
For the first time, the Primarch understood the actual weight of what Wayne had given him. A Library, an empire, a legacy, they were all meaningless if the man who created them was gone. And he couldn't reach the scene fast enough to stop it.
...
On the Library's top floor, Wayne was drinking coffee and reading comics.
The coffee was expensive, and the comics were priceless to him.
He sensed movement in the shadows before he even saw it. Something disturbed the air. The Library's security system was still imperfect; it seems so, a weakness he'd noted and planned to address. These assassins had exploited that gap.
Wayne occupied Nostramo's orbital elevator, the second-largest of only five on the entire planet, and he controlled it alone, no family, no compromise, no alliance, just one Man. All cargo, all trade flowing through it paid taxes to Wayne. This alone made him one of the most powerful forces in this world. He controlled several transport fleets and maintained his own attack squadron. He had the power to keep his position, to take a cut from most noble incomes.
Naturally, he had competitors. And their methods were predictable: find the moment, strike hard, seize control. Once Wayne died, the Wayne Group would be carved up and absorbed by the other hungry powers circling in the darkness.
"Who hired you unfortunate souls?" Wayne asked, his tone bored as he set down his coffee. He'd planned to relax with his comics, not deal with this. But the Library had only been open for a day. Were other forces already reacting? Or were these just ambitious street-level gangsters overestimating themselves?
"No answers."
Ten assassins emerged from the shadows, automatic rifles trained on Wayne with professional precision. They spread out to surround him, cutting off any escape route. Wayne watched them without concern, then calmly set his comic aside.
"I like comic plots sometimes, you know. Heroes making the world better through their actions." Wayne stood slowly. "But even I get frustrated at the naivety of their writer. I'm not a comic hero. Tell you what, I'll give each of you a hundred thousand credits to name your buyer, or buyers, is it?"
"A hundred thousand?" One of the assassins laughed. "You think money matters now?"
"Well, we can double it."
The lead assassin shook his head, incredulous. This man tried to buy his way out? "Are you that out of touch? What we want is your corpse."
"Oh, color me blind, am I that popular now that some nobody you lots came for me?" Wayne stood and placed the comic in a safe spot. He sighed. "You're not from this city, are you?"
The assassins didn't answer. They opened fire.
Automatic rifle rounds filled the air, but they all fell harmlessly a few dozen centimeters from Wayne's body, as though hitting an invisible wall. The bullets tumbled to the floor like dead things.
Wayne simply stretched his arms, drew two pistols from his waist, and smiled slightly at the scattered assassins.
Years ago, Wayne had traded an entire year's income with the Squats, the Leagues of Votann, they called themselves.
Those strange xenos loved rare metals, and Wayne had offered them high-quality adamantium in exchange for certain treasures from their vast collection. They'd been impressed enough by his gift to agree to the trade.
With that capital, he'd purchased defensive equipment from a Dark Age of Technology warlord, a single suit. And because Wayne's gift had been exceptional, the Ironforges had gifted him something precious, a portable Dark Age of Technology pistol, preserved from the golden age when humanity could build wonders.
The emblem on his cuff marked the portable electromagnetic defense barrier. This suit alone was worth three years of the Wayne Group's annual income.
The defense barrier alone made these cheap automatic rifles useless. Perhaps only large plasma weapons would have a chance.
But that wasn't the most valuable thing the Wayne Group possessed. When he'd made the purchase, he'd also acquired something else, a lost intelligence from the Dark Age of Technology, an AI designed to manage vast commercial and military operations. It had proven invaluable.
The assassins saw Wayne draw his weapons and scattered for cover, calculating angles of return fire.
Wayne calmly picked up his phone and dialed.
"Bring up my medical backpack," he said into the receiver.
"Yes, sir." Adelaine's voice was steady as always.
Wayne ended the call and checked his phone's database. The screen displayed detailed information on each assassin, including names, histories, and criminal records. They were all scum, low-level gangsters with multiple kills between them. Sexual assault was common in their files.
"And here I thought you were revolutionaries," Wayne said. "But you're just desperate scums, are you not? Tch, what a pity no credits for you." He pulled the trigger eight times.
The bullets from the ancient pistol locked onto their targets with supernatural precision, shifting through the air to correct their trajectory, piercing the hearts of eight assassins with surgical accuracy. They fell without time to scream.
The remaining two, seeing their companions dead and recognizing they couldn't escape, decided on close combat instead.
Just as they charged, the Library door burst open.
A small, shadowy figure, barely a child in appearance, stepped through and moved with terrifying speed. One assassin hadn't even reacted before the figure's punch sent him crashing to the ground, unconscious. The other tried to run, but the figure caught him and delivered a second punch with casual strength.
Both assassins fell like broken dolls.
"Father, you're still alive?"
Konrad stepped forward, breathing heavily, his dark eyes searching Wayne's frame for injury. His first precognitive vision, and it had been completely wrong. His father stood unmarked, breathing calmly, very much alive.
Wayne's eyes narrowed. "What kind of greeting is that? Don't tell me you were wishing these lots would kill your father?"
Konrad shook his head quickly. He'd expected death, and instead found Wayne untouched. His precognition had failed on its first use. The vision had gratefully been wrong.
The Primarch didn't yet understand the truth. This wasn't his failure; it was Wayne's nature. As a transmigrator, Wayne's soul existed outside the normal fabric of this reality. He had almost no connection to the Warp. And prophecy itself was born from the Warp's chaotic understanding of time, from the Warp's strange existence where all moments existed simultaneously.
For Psykers to see the future, they had to reach through the Warp. And Konrad's precognitive ability, still fragile and new, could only grasp at the threads of Wayne's fate when Wayne's connection to those threads was virtually nonexistent.
The Primarch saw only the failure, not the reason.
"No, I didn't mean that. I..I just had a vision that you would die here."
"Die? Me? By these things?" Wayne stepped over the fallen assassins without looking at them. "That's impossible, Konrad. I've ruled this city for twenty years. If I could be killed so easily, God be damned, I wouldn't show my face in the galaxy again."
Adelaine appeared, pushing open the door, surprised. Her face was marked with cold anger, her narrowed eyes visible. Not a second after the security guards entered, carrying what Konrad first thought was a medical kit.
It wasn't.
The "backpack" was a complex fusion of mechanical arms and surgical equipment, a mobile operating suite built from Dark Age of Technology principles. Nano-Scalpels and micro-tools hung from articulated limbs, each one positioned with precision.
Wayne habitually put it on, activating the neural interface with practiced efficiency. His movements were deliberate, perfected through years of use. "Konrad, do you remember? I told you my father was a doctor."
"Hmm." Konrad watched, uncertain where this was leading.
"Let me give you a first father-son lesson. A study of the human anatomy."
The mechanical tentacles extended toward the unconscious assassins, scalpels gleaming under the Library's light. Wayne's expression remained unchanged, as if this were the most ordinary matter in the world.
As if dissecting criminals in front of his six-month-old child was simply another form of education.
[End of Chapter]